Meditation: the benefits are incredible, but how do we begin?

Meditation: the benefits are incredible, but how do we begin?

Stress is the number one cause of disease, addiction, insomnia and more in the USA today.

Just go ahead and Google, “conditions caused by our inability to deal with stress” and you will find that almost every disease known to man is linked to our inability to deal with stress.

For 28 years, number one best-selling author, counselor and life coach David Essel has been helping people to learn correct coping strategies in the face of dealing with stress, and meditation is just one of the many tools he uses to help people become more grounded, healthy and happy in life.

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Below are are my four key tips to use when beginning a meditation program as I hope you can try them out.

“It was 1974, I was a freshman at Syracuse University, playing on the junior varsity basketball team, and stressed out of my mind.

Not only did we have 3 to 4 hour practice session 6 days a week, with games thrown in as well, but I also had a full 18 hour credit workload that I was carrying and the stress was unbelievable.

A friend of mine invited me to a transcendental meditation class, that was being offered for free just off the university campus. I figured what the heck? It was going to be one hour out of my life, and let me see what this meditation stuff was all about.

I walked into the room and everyone was dressed in white clothes and Birkenstocks. I knew right away meditation was not for me. I turned around walked out shook my head and said I’ll go for a run instead.

10 years later, 1984, and I’m talking to a friend of mine about the stress that I was under opening my own business for the second time, and she recommended meditation. I laughed, she did not laugh back. She told me it would be amazing if I could learn how to meditate.

So here are some of the tips I’d like to offer you, as you enter into the world of meditation to reduce stress, high blood pressure, Addiction, insecurity, anger, loneliness and more:

Number one. Not all forms of meditation are for everyone. Try a variety of different forms from the relaxation technique with breath work, to transcendental meditation, to mantra meditation of many forms… Before you say meditation isn’t for you.

In 1988 I took an intensive weekend training workshop on transcendental meditation, and it radically changed my life.

It was the same form of meditation that I was introduced to in 1974, when I thought it was a bunch of bunk. As I revisited that form of meditation, in a three day intensive workshop, I found it was one of the major keys to life that I had always been looking for, but I just didn’t know it.

Stay open minded.

Number two. If you’re going to try to learn to meditate on your own, never attempt to do this with a book, or an online course unless it’s being led by someone on video that you can follow.

This is critical! I have found that the best way to learn meditation is through an audio program, or a video program, where you’re actually following the instructions of a leader.

For most of us, to try to sit still and concentrate on our breath, or a mantra that you repeat silently over and over in your mind, is almost impossible. But, if you’re following someone else’s voice, it’s really easy through all the variety of apps and videos today, as well as CDs, to get the hang of meditation. It’s a foreign concept, regardless of how many benefits it offers, it’s still a very foreign concept to sit and do nothing.

Number three. There are a variety of massive double blind, placebo controlled studies on the power of transcendental meditation, and some other forms of meditation as well. However, I always caution my clients not to rely on meditation alone to radically change your life.

Just like I wouldn’t tell someone to rely on running alone in order to decrease stress, or learn how to communicate in a troubled relationship.

Let’s be realistic. Meditation is amazing, but it should be part of a holistic living program, I don’t want people to put all their eggs in one basket and think that meditation alone is going to radically bring them to a highly awakened, or enlightened state of being.

Is a powerful? Hell yes. Will it change every problem you have in life? Hell no, unless it’s a miracle.

Number four. Give meditation a 365 day chance, before you say it’s not effective for you.

Everyone is basing his or her live on instant gratification. We want to win the lottery today. We don’t want to work two jobs to become financially independent.

We want to lose weight by taking some magical pill right now. Who wants to go into the gym, and commit to clean eating for 365 days to lose 60 pounds? No one. Even though that’s the only way it’s going to happen.

And it’s the same with meditation. When I committed 365 days in a row to meditate, I found amazing changes happening. It was after that first year, that I was able to meditate in a taxi, a noisy airplane or even an airport terminal.

I remember when I went to get braces in my 30s, and the doctor said I’m going to put this huge apparatus in your mouth and you’re going to feel like possibly choking at times but do your very best because The mold has to be in your mouth for like seven or eight minutes.He was amazed when he came back and I was in this incredibly deep meditative state, thanks to transcendental meditation, and he basically had to bring me out of that state to remove the apparatus from my mouth.Him and his nurse were shocked! I was the first patient that didn’t gag, throw up, or constantly wiggle in the chair hoping that the time will go faster.So as you see, learning meditation can have some very practical benefits as well.

Don’t view it as some kind of woo woo practice, or that you have to be involved with some religion or spiritual group in order to learn the art of meditation. Just give yourself some time, practice daily even just for two or three minutes a day, and you’ll get the hang of it pretty quickly. Your life will slow down, and you’ll be living exactly as you’re supposed to.”

About the author:

David Essel’s work is verified by psychology today, who calls him one of the top counselors and life coaches in United States. He is also verified as a top relationship expert via . David accepts new clients every week from around the world, where he teaches them techniques like meditation, mindfulness, as well as helping them to accomplish any goal they have in life via phone and or Skype sessions. Mention where you read this article from, and you will receive a free 15 minute phone counseling session with David. Reach us at http://www.talkdavid.com/